


A Matter of Time

by Lyn_Laine



Series: A Matter of Time [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 00:56:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12570084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyn_Laine/pseuds/Lyn_Laine
Summary: An accident happens in the Department of Mysteries soon after Harry Potter is first sent to the Dursleys.  It involves the Hall of Prophecy and the Time Room.  That sounds safe, right?  One-shot.





	A Matter of Time

The Time Room was always eerie, but most Unspeakables got used to it.

Amelia Bones was on duty late one night in the Department of Mysteries. She was tired (night shift) and bored (currently working as an Unspeakable while studying law). But Amelia had been tired a lot lately. A great deal of her family had died in the Blood War against the Dark Lord, which had only recently ended.

This forgave a little bit her boredom with the fanciful surroundings she found herself in. Most walls in the Ministry had windows showing illusive, nauseatingly pleasant images, as if to hide the fact that the British wizarding government had to live and work from underground. But not the Department of Mysteries. No windows, very few doors.

This did not, however, make it boring.

The walls were black-tiled, the constant lit torches on the walls in the dark underground space flickering with a glowing, bluish-white light. Amelia was patrolling through the inner workings of the department, just on shift; most research happened during the day, but the experiments were such that they had to be guarded during the night, kept an eye on.

Dealing with concepts like intelligence, love, time, death, and the future, the research in the Department of Mysteries was not such that it could really be kept unguarded overnight. They had a single room full of pure love so strong it melted most solid objects. 

Anything could happen.

She was walking through the Time Room into the Hall of Prophecy, which was right next door. She was yawning, trudging; she felt like a security guard and did not particularly enjoy it. This was not what she had joined the Ministry to do, but she knew it was important in a way, so she kept her bitching to herself.

The Time Room sparkled with beautiful, dancing light. It had hundreds of shelves and tables covered with everything from magical clocks to Time Turners of all sizes and powers. The bigger the Time Turner, the greater the power. At the end of the long room was the massive, sparkling crystal bell jar, in which anything put inside went through various levels of aging, from pre-birth to old age - a good indicator of what the Time Room could do itself. 

Beyond, in the Hall of Prophecy, there was a long, cold chamber with high ceilings and towering shelves lit with blue flame candles. Crowding every shelf, right up to the high ceiling, were prophecies held inside dusty little glass orbs. Some of them were already fulfilled, some of them never would be, and some had yet to get their chance to come to pass.

Amelia was almost to the Hall of Prophecy.

Suddenly, there was an explosive, shaking _BOOM_ from a level above.

Amelia Bones would learn later that an illegal hybrid magical creature that was half dragon had escaped and exploded into a courtroom where a trial was being held for a lower-level former Death Eater. The Death Eater didn’t manage to escape, mostly because all the Dementors hanging about then descended on the sudden heightened frenzies of emotion in the courtroom and in the end it took twenty-four trained Ministry wizards to sort out the whole mess.

So no one was around to here Amelia Bones scream down in the Department of Mysteries.

Not knowing what was going on, and still on edge from the war that had killed her family, she lost her balance and was shoved into a table by the earthquake-like shake. A massive Time Turner fell crashing, as if in slow motion, from the table to the floor, knocking itself past the crystal bell jar, which shook and jangled every so slightly, emitting some silvery dust into the breaking Time Turner. Then the Time Turner tumbled through the door into the Hall of Prophecy and broke with a crash, gold dust settling over everything…

Just as a prophecy, a little glass globe-like ball, got loose with the shaking from the massive shelves inside the Hall of Prophecy and rolled into the center of the falling cloud of Time Turner dust. The entire two rooms flashed pulsating gold for a moment, and when Amelia stood to her feet and ran over…

She swallowed, feeling suddenly nauseous.

“Oh, God,” she said.

The prophecy that had been dusted was not a prophecy that had already been fulfilled. Oh, no, it couldn’t have been that easy. It was the most recent prophecy of all.

The one concerning Harry Potter and the Dark Lord Voldemort. 

It had just been covered in Time Turner dust, mixed with silvery dust from the crystal bell jar, which regulated life all the way from pre-birth to death. And something had just changed - Amelia didn’t have to be smart or trained to know that.

There was one thing she didn’t know: from this point, three separate timelines had diverged. The interesting part was that each one would manifest itself in exactly the same way until the night of Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Sorting.

-

Minister Millicent Bagnold yelled at a terrified and tear-stricken Amelia in her office.

“You do realize,” she shouted, “that we could be living inside whatever that catastrophe did! We have _no_ idea what just happened! We are in _completely_ uncharted territory!”

“I’m sorry, Minister -” Amelia gasped, pale, trembling like a leaf, and stiff as a board, which was not like her. Amelia was always the serious, stern, upright one. But the implications of this frightened even her, and she could tell the Minister, who was always in a remarkably rock-steady state of good humor and had never been known to yell at anyone before.

“The Department of Mysteries is not kept under constant guard to make the threat of catastrophe _worse!”_

“I’m sorry, Minister, I’ll - if I can, I’ll resign -”

“Please don’t, Ms Bones, not yet, at least. I need you to tell me what happened.”

Amelia and Millicent turned around. Albus Dumbledore had just walked into the room wearing purple, star-spangled robes. This kind of dress was usual for eccentric Dumbledore, but unusually, his face was very grave.

“Albus - how do you know, I haven’t told you -?” Millicent Bagnold straightened, her face thunderous. “Tell me what happened,” she said, deadly serious. “Not even you’re that omniscient.”

“At Hogwarts, two new students just appeared on the wizarding child registry,” said Dumbledore.

“So? Albus, people have babies every day -” Millicent began, impatient.

“They are already a year old.”

“... But that’s impossible. Muggleborns can’t steal their magic. We all know that’s a load of crock,” said Millicent, honestly bewildered.

“I am aware of that,” said Dumbledore. “There is more. They appear to have been placed as an exact replica of who they were and what their circumstances were as one year old children. All the people immediately around them are, I think, now convinced they have always been a part of this part of the timeline.”

“Always been a part of…”

“They are children originally from the past,” said Dumbledore, “but their older counterparts are still alive.”

Amelia gave a horrified gasp, now definitely shaking and crying, young and terrified out of her mind.

“That is why I need you to tell me what happened,” he said with quiet calm, looking at Amelia Bones. “Please do not fall apart. I get the feeling this is not entirely your fault.”

“... It’s not,” even Millicent Bagnold could admit, now seeming more tired than angry. “But this had better be good, Albus. Because we don’t know how to undo it. We have no idea what just happened.”

Amelia relayed, shaken, what had occurred. She hadn’t been home since the accident, and eventually Dumbledore sat her down in a chair by command with a soothing mug of tea.

“Anyone would have done the same, Ms Bones,” he said quietly. “Please don’t get discouraged. You are not at fault.”

“Th… thank you, Professor Dumbledore,” Amelia Bones managed in a trembling voice. “Thank you.”

“Who came back, Albus?”

Dumbledore straightened. “Severus Snape and Tom Riddle,” he said. “They are now the age of Harry Potter and his compatriots.”

“Lord Voldemort… and the Death Eater who turned spy for you?” Millicent asked incredulously. Amelia’s pale face had begun to turn green. “Well - well we have to lock them up, we have to -!”

“For what? They’re children with full and untampered souls. They haven’t done anything yet,” said Dumbledore simply. Minister Bagnold stopped, totally silent. “Now you see my problem,” he said with a faint, humorless smile. “Not even I have it in me to send two innocent boys to Azkaban.”

“But - but Albus, think of who they’ll become -!”

“Who they _would_ have become,” Dumbledore corrected. “I believe they are now involved in the prophecy.”

“And we can guess for who!”

“No, we can’t,” Dumbledore corrected.

“Excuse me?” said Minister Bagnold disbelievingly.

“The only certain thing one can say about Divination is that the obvious answer is never the correct one,” said Dumbledore softly. “We both know that was Voldemort’s mistake.”

The conversation had now gone completely over Amelia’s head.

“You think they’re here to help the boy?” said Millicent, frowning.

“I think we will have to wait and see,” said Dumbledore simply. “I will inform the Hogwarts faculty. They are the only ones who will know. The older Severus Snape will assume a pseudonym. Voldemort, tragically, will have to do without such information,” said Dumbledore dryly. “As will all future teachers not currently faculty.”

“So… we do nothing?” Millicent Bagnold confirmed incredulously.

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I recommend these files be sealed,” said Dumbledore. “Who knows what the wrong people could do with this information, yes?” He looked at her over the top of his half moon glasses.

As he walked to the door, Millicent said, “... Dumbledore. You’re not just doing this because you failed those two boys last time?”

“... No, Minister, I am not,” said Dumbledore, but she could not see his face, and he still left with unusual seriousness.

-

Severus Snape (the elder) had protested. He had railed against the decision. But in the end, he was still a former Death Eater, and he had no say.

He left his godson Draco Malfoy playing on the massive tiled floor and walked to the glittering diamond-encrusted Malfoy Manor window. Nobody knew. Nobody _could_ know. At most, when the time came, people would assume the two boys were illegitimate offspring, and it was his job to enforce that belief. But he would have to watch two terrible childhoods, two terrible teenagehoods - one his own - grow into two terrible people. There would be no Lily this time. And he could do nothing to stop it. 

From now on, he was Professor Nathaniel Colburn of Potions - supposedly to get away from Death Eater notoriety - and he had no say.

Damn Potter, for the thousandth time. Damn Harry Potter, and everything he brought with him. 

He could only hope that Draco, at least, would have nothing to do with the Potter boy, with his younger self, with the future devil incarnate. Nothing. Not ever.

**Author's Note:**

> This is where it starts, ladies and gentlemen. One more one-shot, and then we get into a MAJOR MASSIVE FREAKING FIC OHMYGOD.


End file.
